Yeongasi

"Deranged" is an ecological thriller from South Korea with a fair amount of action and a few drama elements as well. Fans of movies such as "The Host" or "Tidal Wave" will also enjoy this one.

The movie tells us the story of two brothers who don't talk to each other anymore since a tragic incident in the past. The intelligent Jae- Hyeok is a disgruntled sales executioner in a pharmaceutical company and has to do a few very degrading jobs to make his wife and two children live a modest live. His brother Jae-Pil is a cop with a bad reputation but a few good connections who is in a relationship with a doctor. When a mysterious disease breaks out in the country, the wife and children of Jae-Hyeok are among the one million infected people. The two brothers need to work together and reconcile and soon realize that the catastrophe has something to do with parasites living in water who nest in human bodies and end up killing them by drowning them or breaking out of their stomaches. As investigations progress, they realize that the infections didn't break out by pure coincidence and are about to discover a conspiracy. Meanwhile, the health of Jae-Hyeok's wife and children decreases and the two brothers desperately need to get their hands on an obscure and rare medicament that could save them.

This pandemic movie convinces with a very solid acting, a well done cinematography with a few well done but not overwhelming special effects and an entertaining pace. There really isn't much wrong with the movie but I thought that the little twist in this movie was too generic and predictable as one feels that one has seen this kind of story line a couple of times before in Hollywood. Towards the end, the two brothers run a little bit too much around to find the medicament and the concept gets just a little bit repetitive. Apart of that, a few more scenes could have been spend on the relationship between the two brother but the movie rather turns out to focus on the sometimes difficult relationship between the father and his wife and children that is very well done and touching.

Those who like pandemic thrillers and modern South Korean cinema should purchase this film and will be well entertained. It's nothing groundbreaking or new but the film is on the same high level as the Hollywood movies of the same kind inspired by the novels of Robin Cook, Michael Crichton or Stephen King for example.

They did a pretty good job on making this epidemic disaster movie. The movie does a pretty good job on using Nematomorpha that infect people causing them to die from drowning in water. It really shows how dangerous these parasites are in the movie by how it cause a lot of deaths in a city and random bodies showing up in body of waters. The movie itself is suspenseful and thrilling with the characters trying to figured out how to cure people and heal them back up. There's one medicine that work and the main character try to find it for his family. Unfortunately it gets pretty tedious with the medicine keep getting destroyed by current characters in the movie. But I do like the climax of the movie on how it was resolve.

As we can see Korea now try to wider their genre instead of just popular with their gangster-gore-cop movie as always. They had try courtroom, sport, war, social problem and many things so now they come up with ''Deranged'', their first pandemic movie maybe.

Maybe everyone will remember about ''Contagion'', yes they are the same genre but this is Korea, so they are totally different movie because all korean fans know what West don't have in their movie, only in Korea.

Distressful, thrilling, suspenseful, dramatic, thats what we need in the movie and Deranged have it all. Maybe it have a predictable solution but its so exciting and very worth watching. Especially for the ''race against time'' scene! Good try fella!

Deranged is a recent (2012) horror/thriller/monster movie that's decent enough. For comparison's sake to recent similarly themed Korean movies; it's not near on the level of say The Host, but it's quite better than incredibly disappointing Sector 7.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Here's your story: A severely dehydrated and decomposed body washes up on shore somewhere in Korea. The medical examiners are a bit baffled at the cause of death, but alert the police that this isn't the first identical case they've seen. Soon enough, more dead bodies start arriving by the handful, then dozens, then hundreds, across the whole of Korea. Widespread panic sets in, and it quickly becomes clear that some type of deadly outbreak is underway.

With few clues at all, the authorities fortunately catch a break when they observe some of deaths occurring in real time on video cameras throughout the country. What they see appears to be people desperately trying to drown themselves as if they were possessed or on drugs. Another break in the case soon appears when one of the bodies is recovered before it can make it to a waterway to drown itself. What's inside the body are mutated parasitic worms that have latched on to the human nervous system in order to feed & reproduce.

The worms feed on the host, requiring massive amounts of water to stay hydrated, until they are fully grown. Once in the adult stage, they drive the host to the nearest body of water where they can escape in order to reproduce. Surgery is not an option, but at least the doctors and scientists can now study the parasites and try to find a way to kill them. They better find a solution quick though, because the epidemic is spinning out of control.

The pacing of the early half of this movie is really nicely done. The outbreak occurs suddenly and without explanation, and the tension is palpable as thousands of people are soon contaminated, and efforts to contain the problem are not working. Before long, infected people are everywhere, and their zombie like insistence to get to water is entertainingly portrayed. This part of the movie certainly gives you a "we're all screwed" impression that the end of the world is near.

Miraculously, there already exists a solution for the problem, in the form of a rather obscure over the counter drug that was recently discontinued. The general public races out to buy up the remaining supply off the shelves, while the government works to restart production as quickly as possible. The lone pharma company that makes the drug can't meet demand alone though, and being a dickish pharma company, they don't want to release the drug's formula because of the profits at stake.

The outbreak, the government's efforts in containing it, and the pharma company's involvement are all effectively portrayed. There's also some lingering concerns as to how and why this outbreak started, and why this otherwise unimportant drug is the cure all. It makes for an interesting case study that covers a wide range of the implications of modern medicine & science, corporate power & greed, etc.

Where this film fails to succeed is on a personal level. While the wider focus is on the overall problem at hand, there's also a separate focal point involving 2 brothers and their families affected by the epidemic. These personal stories are attempted to be interjected in similar manner as in The Host, to give you a family/personal connection to the overall monster/disaster story, but it's not very effective. Part of the problem is the actors and actresses don't seem to mesh together well, and worse, their interpersonal stories are not very well written for them. I simply did not care about the cop and the relationship with his estranged scientist wife because of the cursory nature of it. The other brother's efforts to save his family are undermined by a similar problem.

These stories are underwritten and seemed forced into the plot without much foresight. Either they should have devoted more effort developing these characters before and during the events, or they should have dedicated less time to them altogether. As it stood, it came off as a somewhat half-assed attempt to have you invest in some random characters as they reconnect with one another while under duress. Did not work!

Overall, this film's not bad for what it is. It works OK enough to slightly recommend, and it does so on a moderate budget for a horror/monster film.

Bottom Line: 6 or 7 stars or so. 6 stars it is.

I like Asian movies and this one added to my list of favorites ones. Deranged has drama, horror, suspense everything blended nicely into 110 minutes. The acting is OK nothing spectacular but the story was strong.

Jae-hyuk is an ordinary man in his 40s. He works as a medical supplies salesman and is hassled by doctors all day. His brother Jae-pil is a detective that is not all that interested in public safety and spends most of his time moaning about the stock market. The discovery of a series of floating, gruesomely skeletal bodies around the country sparks hysteria.

I don't want to spoil something so the rest you will see it on your own. Give this a try and you wont regret it.

My vote is 8/10